Analysis, comments and some sound advice from a seasoned skeptic

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Quick History Lesson

I opened up this conversation five years ago with an analysis of the following meme.

The intent of the above is to paint the current Democratic Party as the enemy of civil rights and progress. My analysis spelled out that the critical language is not Democratic versus Republican but liberal versus conservative. The original post has been viewed over 58,000 times since 2015, and readers have posted 50 comments, including the one I will analyze here. Yesterday “NTS” submitted the following:

Both of these articles successfully refute the “party switch” myth with many sourced facts to back it up.

Yeah, it’s bogus. It’s what is called in the industry “ring and run.” It’s game played by children. You go up to a house, a place where you don’t know anybody. And you ring the doorbell. Then you run. Then the poor idiot living there comes to the door, and there is nobody there. It is funny. “Ha! Fooled you.” That’s ring and run, and I get a bunch of it. In fact, I get a bunch of it when the person posting the comment is sure what he is posting has no value, and he would not like his name associated with it. Ring and run.

I activated the links NTS provided, and I invite readers to follow the links and to read what NTS considers to be an argument against my contention that liberals support civil rights. Let’s take the first link and view some excerpts. The author of the item is not identified:

The left is quite annoyed that myself and others dare link the racist, segregationist past in this country to Democrats, at that flies in the face of everything they claim to champion, when it comes to civil rights, racial tolerance, etc.

The writer cites sources, which a careful reader will want to follow. He concludes:

BUT, and we must stress this: the new southern Republicans were *integrationist* Republicans who accepted the Civil Rights revolution and full integration while retaining their love of Jeffersonian limited government principles.

I stand back for a moment, and I get the impression this is supposed to be an argument that the current Democratic Party is the party of racism, and the Republican Party is the party of civil rights. Absorbing all the verbiage, I turn to reality.

“Why do we need more Haitians?” Trump said, according to people familiar with the meeting. “Take them out.”

Republicans may say they do not like racist the element in society, but that element is no friend of the Democrats. Instead:

“Voting for these people [Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz], voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage. I’m not saying I endorse everything about Trump, in fact I haven’t formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do.”

The Justice Department made an unexpected move last July when it stepped into in a major federal lawsuit to argue the Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t protect gay workers from discrimination. The Trump administration’s filing was unusual in part because the Justice Department wasn’t a party in the case, and the department doesn’t typically weigh in on private employment lawsuits. Further, the Justice Department was fighting against a separate, autonomous federal agency that had supported a gay man’s case. The court ruled in favor of LGBT rights, but the Trump administration hasn’t reversed its stance that it’s legal under federal law to fire employees for being gay.

Getting past all that, let’s look at some people you will never see cheering at a Democratic Party rally:

To be sure, there is much more. So, NTS, whatever your real name is, if you want to convince people that the Democratic Party is opposed to civil rights and is the party of racism, then your invitation is open. Bring it on.